Lessons in Sustainable Happiness

Summary

As educators strive to transform education from an industrial model of education towards 21st century learning, we are hearing calls for incorporating innovation, creativity, digital literacy, character education, entrepreneurship, and much more. Essentially, we are seeking to repurpose education. What if we embraced a vision of wellbeing for all, sustainably? What if we sought happiness and well-being for all, while respecting the natural environment that sustains us?

Sustainable happiness, - happiness that contributes to individual, community, and global well-being, sustainably - offers an opportunity to explore how to achieve this, for educators and for our students.

Lessons in Sustainable Happiness provides activities for teachers to enhance their own sustainable happiness. These activities are followed with lessons in sustainable happiness for primary, junior and intermediate grades. At a time when teacher wellbeing, student mental health and planetary health need to be addressed, Lessons in Sustainable Happiness offers practical steps for integrating sustainability and wellbeing.

Sustainable happiness takes happiness to a new level.

Sustainable happiness offers an innovative approach that invites reflection on sustainability coupled with opportunities to enhance our quality of life and contribute to individual, community and global wellbeing.

Catherine O'Brien, PhD is an education professor who developed the concept of sustainable happiness and teaches the world's first university course in this groundbreaking field. She is a leading contributor to the development of the online course in sustainable happiness. Her blog, SH-EXTRA provides inspiring examples of bringing sustainable happiness to life.

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Lessons in Sustainable Happiness - Catherine O'Brien

1

Sustainable Happiness for Teachers

This chapter is for you. It is about your happiness and wellbeing, how you can choose a sustainable happiness lifestyle and why this is important for you, for the people you feel close to, your community, and the planet. Chapter Two takes sustainable happiness into your classroom. Subsequent chapters provide sustainable happiness lessons but for now, let’s focus on you.

This books starts with your happiness and wellbeing because your wellbeing affects you personally and everyone around you. When you flourish, you have more energy, stamina, and resilience to bring to your personal and professional life. As you read through these sections on sustainable happiness, it is my hope that it will be meaningful to you and inspire you to incorporate sustainable happiness into your life and work.

Here’s my definition of sustainable happiness.

Sustainable Happiness is…

"Happiness that contributes to individual, community, and/or global wellbeing and does not exploit other people, the environment, or future generations." (O’Brien, 2010)

Sustainable happiness links happiness and sustainability together. It reinforces the fact that we are interdependent with one another and the natural environment – that our mutual wellbeing is interconnected. It can also be used as a roadmap to explore what truly makes your heart sing.

Sustainable happiness is about enduring happiness and life satisfaction but it’s not only about you as an individual because none of us can flourish in isolation. The choices we make on a daily basis have an impact, for better or worse, on other people, other species, the natural environment, and even future generations. Exploring sustainable happiness and choosing a sustainable happiness lifestyle can enhance your sustainable happiness footprint (I’ll talk more about that in a bit). It can also make you feel happier, and more content.

Why would sustainable happiness be more beneficial to you than a simple focus on happiness? These days, there are more than a thousand books and articles you can read on happiness. The emergence of positive psychology has generated enormous interest in happiness and this is contributing to our understanding of what helps people to thrive as well as what policies might foster wellbeing at the national level. I’ve included a recommended reading list at the end of this chapter. There are some key lessons to take away from happiness research and I’ve integrated it into my work on sustainable happiness. For example, the happiest people tend to be empathetic and generous. They are more likely to experience and express appreciation and gratitude. They may have developed resilience through overcoming challenging life experiences or even trauma. They know that their happiness comes from relationships – and not through the accumulation of material things.

The missing piece to the happiness research, for the most part, is that it tends to overlook the fact that we are interdependent and interconnected with other people, other species and nature. On a daily basis, our life touches and is touched by other people and the natural environment – in countless ways.

To demonstrate the difference between happiness and sustainable happiness, let’s take a look at my morning cup of coffee. Each morning I greet the day with a freshly brewed cup. The benefits of being mindful of our sensory experience have been discussed by mindfulness experts and positive psychologists. We might enjoy the aroma, the warmth of the cup, the sounds around us, and the company we are with. The positive emotions associated with the cup of coffee can enhance our experience of wellbeing. Viewed through the lens of sustainable happiness, this momentary pleasure can be placed in a wider context because the pleasure I get from that first cup extends beyond my taste buds; it’s about an invisible connection. We may not always be able to physically see connections but they exist nonetheless. The connection trail for my morning coffee can be traced all the way back to the plant on which the beans were grown. Was it cultivated with care for the environment? What about the people tending the plants and picking the beans? Were they paid fairly? I look for coffee that says it is fair trade, direct coffee or forest grown organic. Not only is it a better choice for the producers and the environment and my taste buds are happy too.

The other main reason to focus on sustainable happiness is that in our modern cultures most of us are being socialized to associate happiness with consumption. There’s almost no way to escape this. We’re bombarded with media messages that strive to convince us that we will be happier if we purchase the product advertised. Television shows provide a steady stream of role models that we may unconsciously compare ourselves against. The result can be a constant undercurrent of messages that tell us that we aren’t good enough, rich enough, slim enough, beautiful enough, young enough, cool enough, etc. Unless we are especially mindful of the impact of these media messages on ourselves it, can prompt us to indulge in consumption patterns that not only do not lead to greater happiness but are also not the path to sustainability.

Teacher Wellbeing

Teaching is a giving profession. People who are drawn to be educators and who love teaching tend to enjoy helping others. Finding the right balance between giving to others and oneself is essential though. I’ve taught teachers for many years and I’ve noticed that teachers often give of themselves to the point of depletion or even burn-out. In one of the university counselling courses I teach I include an assignment for self-care. The students are required to do at least one thing during that week that contributes to their happiness and wellbeing – read a book for pleasure, take a walk, have a date night, visit with a friend, schedule a massage. I’m sure you can imagine that this is a very popular assignment! The teachers often comment that it’s a shame they needed an assignment to make time for themselves.

I’ve also learned from teachers that they feel there is very little offered to them in terms of professional development or administrative support to foster their wellbeing. This book provides an opportunity for you to take matters into your own hands – to be choicemakers about your wellbeing.

Let’s begin!

Your Happy List

Rick Foster and Greg Hicks (authors of How We Choose to Be Happy), who interviewed hundreds of very happy people, found that the happiest people know what makes their heart sing and they consciously weave this into their life. For example, if you enjoy going for a walk in a wooded area, make time to do so as often as possible because this is something that replenishes you. Rick, Greg and I have teamed up to offer workshops and courses and the Happy List is adapted from an activity they created. (We also co-developed an online course on sustainable happiness, along with film maker, Ian Murray).

Some people like to set a timer for the Happy List activity. If that appeals to you, set one for four minutes.

When you’re ready, with a piece of paper and a pen, start making a list of all the things, people, places and activities, that make you feel happy. Just speedwrite without censoring yourself. Let the ideas flow until the time is up, or beyond. If you still have more to add keeping writing even after the timer goes off!

Once you’re done, take a look over your list and revel in what makes your heart sing.

Then, consider if there is anything on your list that you are already doing and things that you would like to do more often, integrating your Happy List more fully into your lifestyle.

You can refine your list to be a Sustainable Happiness List by reflecting on those things listed that make you feel happy but may not be contributing to your wellbeing, or possibly even harming other people and the environment. For example, some people enjoy taking a long drive. They find it relaxing. However, we know that most of our motorized vehicle emissions are destructive to human and environmental health. With sustainability in mind, we ought to be reducing car travel. Consequently, it would be beneficial to develop other options for